Help with Equitech 1.5Q power conditioner

but now you have another path which is participating in that current flow.

That is correct. I have been wondering if somehow the provided parallel path is what caused the GFCI to trip. My math above says 3mA. I doubt that was the reason the GFCI tripped. I’m not sure the 3mA number has an relevance to why it tripped.

Maybe it was the parallel path I provided... I apparently upset the sensing unit in the GFCI though.

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I’d be curious to see you measure the actual current next time. :)

I have been thinking about that myself. I think a resistance should be put in series with the amp meter. That would replicate a small ground fault leakage more like that of a piece of equipment.

I keep going back to your statement in a post above.

01-08-2025 at 09:40am

GFCI outlets do go bad, but it could also be equipment with a leaky capacitor to ground

I don’t know how old the OP’s equipment is but I believe some equipment manufacturers put a cap or sometimes a high ohm-age resistor connected from the neutral to the chassis. If it is a leaky cap would it be more susceptible to pass current to the chassis at 60V potential to ground than a few millivolts to ground? (Equitech 1.5Q AC mains Conductor that feeds the neutral wire in the equipment is ungrounded 60V to ground.) (House wiring branch circuit neutral conductor a few millivolts to ground at the chassis.)

All conjecture on my part though.

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Actually i think these units deliver +60 VAC on the hot and -60 VAC on the neutral. I belive that is what your meter should read when testing the outlets.  

Hot to ground +60 v and neutral to ground is -60 v.   Measuring across hot and neutral should give 120v.   

@oddiofyl  -

Since it's AC, there's no + or - involved.  In a balanced outlet the meter should read 60VAC between either hot or neutral to ground, and 120VAC between H and N.

In a normal outlet H to N is 120V, H to G is 120V and N to ground is near 0.

Though we don't use signs, it's correct to say that H and N in a balanced outlet are equal and opposite at any given point in time.

I believe some equipment manufacturers put a cap or sometimes a high ohm-age resistor connected from the neutral to the chassis

I haven’t seen every piece of equipment but this should not be the case for many decades. There is however often a resistor/cap between the signal ground and chassis ground, which often leads to endless fun tracking down ground loops. The resistor doesn’t cause ground loops, the ground connection, resistor or not, in the signal causes it. A place where transformer coupled inputs really shine. :)

The classic linear power supply I’m familiar with has no reason to connect the neutral to anything but the transformer primary winding but they often usually connect the center tap of the secondary to chassis ground, which is of course also often connected to the EGC. Some equipment I’ve seen does the right thing by avoiding the EGC altogether and being "double insulated." Luxman integrateds are like this, which is brilliant from a noise point of view but given what I’ve seen I’m not sure how their amps are double insulated.

Visit EquiTechs website.  That is how their Balanced Power works.  Measure as I described and you should see that +60 hot to ground -60 neutral to ground